“GDP growth slipped to its lowest since 2012, at 1.4%, down from 1.8% in 2017.” The UK’s dismal performance in 2018 gave the lie to “Philip Hammond’s claim that Britain can reap an economic dividend from Theresa May’s Brexit deal…as official figures confirmed the UK has suffered its worst year for GDP growth since 2012.”

In recent decades, per capita GDP has doubled in the U.S., but “the bulk of the bounty has flowed to the very rich. The middle class has received relative crumbs. If middle-class pay had increased as fast as the economic growth, the average middle-class family would today earn about $15,000 a year more than it does, after taxes and benefits.”

“Blind adherence to ESG criteria… could skew capital flows towards the most privileged parts of the world. That would make it harder for poorer economies to escape poverty—a failure that could, in turn, inhibit their progress on green, governance and social-justice matters.” For this reason, Charlie Robertson and others are arguing that “ethical investors should instead adopt a kind of economic relativism, judging countries relative to their GDP per person.”

“Debt stalks Africa once again. Over the past six years sub-Saharan governments have issued $81bn in dollar bonds to investors hungry for yield. Piled on top of this are murkier syndicated loans and bilateral debts, many to China and tied to big construction projects. Public debt has climbed above 50% of GDP in half the countries in sub-Saharan Africa. The risk of a crisis is growing.”

“When the U.K. secedes from the EU, it will abandon 70 years of globalization. It will turn away from a world order that increasingly relies on supranational institutions to check the power of extremely wealthy individuals and corporations like Apple and Facebook, with market capitalizations far bigger than the GDPs of most nations.” The potential consequences of Brexit leave many in the City of London feeling threatened, but there is “a coterie of hard-right, wealthy businessmen” who are delighted about “rolling back globalization to protect their positions of power — all in the name of populism.”

“As the disastrous impact of leaving the EU becomes clearer, UK citizens should be allowed another say.” Some forecasts estimate that it will take “at least 20 years before the UK economy stabilises after Brexit.” And the London School of Economics “found that all EU countries will lose income after Brexit. The overall GDP fall in the UK is estimated at between £26bn and £55bn, depending on the negotiated settlement. In the most pessimistic scenario, the cost of Brexit could be as high as £6,400 for each household.”

“There’s still time for a Suez style retreat from Brexit… There is no cosmic law mandating the continuation of a folly simply because it is begun; no rule of primogeniture giving an older expression of the democratic will precedence over any that might follow…. an epochal global humiliation is a far smaller price to pay than 8 per cent, 5 per cent or even 2 per cent of GDP.”

“Japan’s back, baby! No, you’re not hallucinating…. The world’s third-largest economy may finally have put its deflationary past behind…. Gross domestic product expanded for six straight quarters through June, momentum not seen in more than a decade, and private consumption, which accounts for two thirds of GDP, rose nearly 1 percent in the second quarter.”

“It is odd that North Korea causes so much trouble. It is not exactly a superpower. Its economy is only a fiftieth as big as that of its democratic capitalist cousin, South Korea. Americans spend twice its total GDP on their pets.” And yet everyone is wondering what to do with this rogue. “There are no good options to curb Kim Jong Un.” But a first strike or “blundering into war would be the worst… The world must keep calm and contain Mr Kim.”

There is a “big problem with China’s bridge and tunnel addiction.” It looks unsustainable. “China spent more than $10.8 trillion on infrastructure from 2006 to 2015…. Outlays for roads, airports, ports, railways, and the like rose 17.4 percent last year, far outpacing the country’s 6.7 percent expansion in gross domestic product.” To maintain the pace, Beijing is promoting public-private partnerships (PPP), but these look “unstable.”